AWAKENING TO A NEW YEAR!

The party’s over!  The decorations have come down! Most tellingly  the crib figures have been removed from the church, put into storage. Are Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men and even baby Jesus. Now being out of sight were they to be henceforth banished from our minds?  We must not allow this to happen!

In the course of this  Liturgical Year from Advent to Advent the Church will celebrate  the history, the mystery, of our salvation as accomplished through the life, death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus.  As our focus shifts   according to liturgical feasts and seasons we carry everything we believe about Jesus ….everything we expect of Jesus, everything He expects of us. And how do we carry this package? Not as a burdensome load on our backs, but as a treasure clutched to our hearts.

At Christmas we gave pride of place to the birth of the child Jesus. Then, on New Year’s Day the Church kept the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. Honour the new-born, Jesus,  then honour  His mother -  Mary!  She is very much worthy of our love and devotion.  What an intimate relationship she had with God! She gave Him  all the baby-care He needed …her Mary’s Son being the Son of God. She who had presented her child to the world at His birth presented Him to the world with generous, courageous love at that moment when Jesus gasped His last breath on the Cross.   Our wonder at the beauty of the Bethlehem Manger should not to be separated from our horrified awe at what took place at the Calvary!  

For  almost  half a century  Popes have seen the need to commence  each  year  with  a WORLD DAY OF PEACE – with each year having its own theme -  throwing its own  emphasis  on the   purpose of the Son of God becoming man, one of us. Surely it was  to  redeem, to bring peace, to  the family of mankind  that had lost its way and was relentlessly pursuing  a path of self-destruction. 

Pope Francis, In choosing  for his theme,  ‘SLAVES NO MORE, BUT BROTHERS AND SISTERS’ intended to startle us. He knew  that many people think that slavery is a thing of the past. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘this social plague remains all too real in today’s world.’  In a very general sense the Pope sees as enslavement the treatment of anyone as an object of contempt, a thing to be possessed, used and abused according to the convenience and inclination of another.  Wherever there is  inflicted misery that makes life a wretched  experience there is a form of enslavement. 

Central to the Pope’s thinking is the fact that every single one of us originates from God; each of  us is stamped  with the dignity of being made in the image and likeness of God. At a very basic level each of us is a person of dignity deserving to be  to be respected.  Indeed, the Pope sees every form of violence as a kind of replay  of the outrageous way Cain treated his brother Abel. Yet more profoundly he sees it as a replay of the violence inflicted on the one who became the Brother of all Mankind – Brother Jesus, Son of God,  Son of Man.

The Pope expects us to be soul-searching about the way we relate to others. He expects us to be pro-active in alerting   our society to whatever inhumanity is being perpetrated or tolerated. This Message  of  Peace, this rejection of every form of  Enslavement  must be lived and  promoted by all of  us throughout this year, and every year.  The impetus and inspiration that were drawn from our celebration   on the first day of this year must not be shelved out of the way - as have been the decorations and crib figures.

It is a matter of urgency  that throughout the year  all  of us live with the necessary coupling of  the hands-on spirituality of  the World Day of Peace and the radical transforming  spirituality  derived  Mary being  the Mother of God whose Son is the Saviour  of this                                                         GOD- LOVED… NEVER-GOD-FORESAKEN WORLD!

Peter Clarke, OP 

"THE PLAY'S THE THING...!"

Whenever I see a play on a theatre stage or on a cinema/TV screen it does me good. It opens up my world, it enlightens and enriches my world! Reading a certain type of novel has the same effect on me! It’s not that I’m escaping the ‘real world’ by entering the world of fiction. I find I’m being drawn into, even sharing in the world of other people – their joys, sorrows, successes and failures. I would even go so far as to say that these excursions throw light on my own self, my own world. I identify with the characters when the presentation, the narrative, is convincing. I take sides with my ‘heroes’ and turn against my ‘villains!’

Well do I remember seeing a film in which the hero was killed. From the darkness of the cinema our ears were assaulted with a piercing howl of grief. The poor soul had really become involved with him. No longer was she a passive observer. She’d moved into the realm of audience participation, personal involvement! And I’m not ashamed to admit that a play has so moved me that tears have run down my cheeks.

The Church has long seized the opportunity to harness the power of drama in the presentation of its message. This is one way of showing us how to responds to St. John’s injunction for us to,

“keep alive in you what you heard from the beginning,” (1 Jn. 2. 24).

Christmas-tide had many of us eagerly watching Nativity Plays. Actors were encouraged to ‘get inside' the characters they were playing –as Mary or Joseph, the shepherds or magi. They were challenged to ‘play out’ the way they would have reacted if they had been present when Jesus was born.

The marvel is that such drama helps not only the actors, but also the audience, to enter the mysteries of our salvation. This approach can also bring the Sacred Scriptures alive for us, if we make the effort to identify with the various characters in the Drama of Salvation as it unfolds in the Bible.

We can say much the same about the way we celebrate the Sacred Liturgy.

In a unique way this makes present to us the drama of our personal salvation. At Christmas we not only celebrate the birthday of our Saviour, but our own birthdays as the children of God, whom Jesus came to save. With Jesus becoming alive as a member of the Family of Man, we become alive in the Family of God. Each Christmas celebration should renew our life as the children of God and followers of Christ. Entering into the spirit of Christmas should mean allowing the drama of the birth of Jesus to re-shape the way we live. We should not remain passive, detached observers.

Our celebration of each of the great feasts marks events in the drama of our salvation. At the Epiphany we should identify with the Magi as they rejoiced at the salvation Jesus offered the pagan world. With increasing wonder we should make Jesus ever more welcome in our lives. More than this, the Epiphany should become so much a part of us that we become ‘Living Epiphanies’ radiating the glory of God. This should be our approach as we celebrate the great Solemnities of the Liturgical Year as well as the message within the ordinariness of Ordinary Time.

Remember how this reflection began with our allowing ourselves to be seized by the drama of the stage, the screen, the written word? Do we want our celebration of the liturgical drama to draw us into the Mysteries of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus? Do we want this to melt us, mould us into the People Jesus means us to be? Bring about a dramatic change, improvement, in ourselves???

Or do we remain distant, semi-detached onlookers, who enjoy celebrating the liturgy –providing it doesn’t mean any radical, inconvenient changes to the way we live? Indifference to the drama of salvation is a kind of rejection. We should be asking ourselves these serious questions.

 Isidore O.P.

 

TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD!

I saw them only  a few days ago. Daddy was holding his infant child close his chest and Mummy was gazing at the two of them.  Their three pairs of twinkling eyes spoke the language of love, so innocent, so joyful, so uncomplicated. Eyes were speaking to eyes, hearts to hearts, as they shared peace with each other.  Nothing needed to be said, nothing needed to be done.    That precious moment  was  its own perfection,  its own  fulfillment, with even a glimmer of eternity.                                                                                                                                    

As my eyes rested on the ‘love circle’ of this young family  the  phrase, taken from the musical “Les Miserables,’ ‘TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD’ ()  for  me assumed  a life of its own….GOD IS LOVE…nothing more, nothing less,  GOD IS LOVE (1 Jn. 4.8)…LOVE - AN OUT-POURING OF SELF into the very being of another; to be loved is TO TAKE UNTO ONESELF a tidal-wave of love surging towards us from another. It is the wondrous being  together with each other, for each other. 

What I have just described probably takes place a million-fold, every moment of every day.  As I put together these few thoughts  for you  I have before me the simplest of Nativity scenes depicting Mary and Joseph gazing lovingly at the infant Jesus, and He gazing lovingly at them.                                       

St. John, the person described as the ‘Disciple Jesus Loved,’ wrote  ‘Something which has existed since the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of life -- this is our theme.  That life was made visible; we saw it and are giving our testimony, declaring to you the eternal life, which was present to the Father and has been revealed to us.³ We   are declaring to you what we have seen and heard, so that you too may share our life. Our life is shared with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, ’(1 Jn.1.1).                                                                                                                                                     

In other words, after Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to the disciples John was given the Faith to believe that he had actually come into immediate contact with God  whenever  he had encountered Jesus. For John this was the awesome, literal truth.                                                               

St. Paul in his Letter to the Colossians helps us to understand how this could be so, ‘In Christ, in bodily form, lives divinity in all its fullness, in Him you too find your own fulfilment,’ (Col. 2.9). From this we must conclude that even the most minute, most insignificant, gesture of Jesus from the moment He was conceived in the womb of Mary, was of infinite divine  worth, because it was performed by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity – the Son of God, the Son of Mary.                                                                                                                                                    Mary and Joseph, from the moment they responded to the message of the Archangel Gabriel, would have believed everything I have just described to you. This was what the birth of Jesus meant to them and everything they did for Jesus, everything Jesus did with them, for them. I dare to suggest that it must have taken a special grace from God that their  hearts did not burst at the joyful immensity of what they were experiencing in parenting Jesus.                                                                    

Can you believe me when I tell you I am emotionally and spiritually exhausted after composing this reflection.   I simply need to gaze at, gaze into, the beautiful Nativity picture I have before me and allow it to speak to me and to engulf  me.

My brother Isidore OP  and I send you this Christmas Message, with our love and blessing.

Peter Clarke, O.P.

LIKE A MOTHER HEN...!?

 

I bet the Holy Family kept hens! Like any young lad Jesus would have been fascinated by them, collected their eggs, watched the mother hen with her chicks. He may even have chased them. In fact Jesus seems to have had the curiosity and sense of wonder of any child. For Him, as for them, everything was new. Like any other child He may well have driven His parents to distraction with His constantly asking, "Why? What is this? How does this work?" The child, Jesus, was discovering the world in which, He, the Son of God, was growing up, the world which through Him, the Word, came into being. He was learning what it meant for Him to be human, what it meant for the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. He, the creator of heaven and earth, was seeing the world afresh, through the eyes of a child. He was filled with a sense of wonder.

Although I’ve been aware of such ideas for many, many years they have become especially vivid during my present Advent preparation for celebrating the birthday of our saviour. A beautiful book, entitled "Jesus –A Portrait," by Gerald O’Collins S.J. has become a spring-board for these present musings. He is helping me appreciate what it meant for the Son of God to join the human race –to become one of us.

I’m fascinated by the way Jesus was so interest in the world in which He was growing up -in His world, our world. As a child He may well have planted some seeds and marvelled as shoots sprang from the ground while He was tucked up in bed. I can remember my own excitement when I woke up and first saw the tiny shoots of the lettuces I had planted. Jesus observed and noted what was going on around Him –the farmers sowing seed, people losing and finding a sheep, a coin, even a son. He would have seen joyful weddings followed by a banquet; He would have heard of high-way robberies, of people anxiously waiting to be employed, domestic quarrels and industrial disputes, dishonest labourers, and employers exploiting their workers. He probably watched His mother Mary bake bread and marvelled at the way a little yeast could expand a large lump of dough.

All these and so many more experiences formed the rhythm of Jesus’ life from His infancy to His death. Though common-place, because they are shared by people of every generation and culture, they are of immense significance to each individual child. They go to make up what it means for us to become world-alert human beings. The very same applied to Jesus Himself. These experiences are so normal, so much a part of the fabric of our daily lives, that they hardly seem worth mentioning.

The wonderful thing is that Jesus used His experience of our human world to help us understand His experience of God’s world. He had a foot in both camps, and so knew what He was talking about! With the authority of personal knowledge He could say, "the Kingdom of Heaven is like this or that. Or God is like…" He would then use what He’d learnt during His childhood to illustrate what He meant. His ‘hidden life’ certainly wasn’t wasted; it had furnished His mind with a wealth of experiences, which He could put to good use in His preaching.

As I reflect on the stories He told, the imagery He used, I’m struck by how down to earth Jesus is. Fr. O’Collins points out that the Old Testament compares God with a magnificent eagle supporting its young on its wings and uses this as a glorious parable of God rescuing His people from slavery, (Duet. 32. 11; Exod. 19. 4). But instead of being like the majestic eagle Jesus likens Himself to a mother hen trying to protect her chicks under her wings –but they wouldn’t come, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!" (Lk. 13. 34).

The Son of God has descended from the lofty heights of heaven to the level of the farmyard -to our level! He Himself has said He’s like a mother hen. We wouldn’t dare make such a comparison. The contrast between the regal eagle and the common yard-fowl sums much of what it meant for the Son of God to become man –while still remaining God. Especially during Advent let us make sure that we’re not like those rebellious chicks, which refused to seek the saving sanctuary of the wings of mother hen –Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the saviour of the world!

Isidore Clarke O.P.



 

 

　

　



 

 

 

 

　

　

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



"TEAR OPEN THE HEAVENS...."

 



Have you ever felt like giving God a good shake to wake Him up?   If so, you’re in good company.   Impatiently, the Psalmist, speaking for his people, exclaimed, “Arouse Yourself, why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression?"  (Ps.44. 23-24).

He was desperate.   Where was God when he most needed Him?  Where is He when we most need Him?  Has He forgotten us?   Does He no longer care for us?   Or is He just asleep and needs waking up?

These are the anxieties and doubts, which the prophet Isaiah expressed in today’s  1st Reading for the 1st Sunday of Advent.   There he cries, 'Tear open the heavens and come down!' (Is. 64. 1). The prophet expressed the frustrations and longings of God’s people.   They’d returned joyfully from exile in Babylon.  But they’d found their land devastated, Jerusalem in ruins, its temple destroyed.   They’d become depressed by the arduous task of re-building their lives.   Now the God who had rescued them seemed so distant.  

Against this background the prophet presumed to remind God of His commitment to His people.    He begged God to tear open the heavens and come down to help them.

Deep within God’s people the Lord had planted the conviction that He would always come to their rescue.  His prophets had foretold the coming of the Lord’s anointed –a Messiah –who would establish His sovereignty over the whole of creation.   They foresaw a time when He would banish evil, a day when God’s love, justice and peace would reign.

God has responded magnificently to our needs and to our longings.  He has torn the heavens open and come to save us. His Son, the Word, has become flesh and dwelt among us.  He has shared our human life, so that we could share His divine life and happiness. God could not have paid the human race a greater compliment than by joining it!

The heavens were torn open and God came to our rescue most decisively at the moment of Christ’s death. This was dramatically symbolised when the veil of the Temple was split from top to bottom. That divided the Temple into God’s dwelling place in the Holy of Holies, and man’s domain.  Only on the Day of Atonement could the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies.  But with His death Jesus tore asunder the barrier separating man from God. Through the blood of the cross He has atoned for our sins; He has made our peace with God. Through Jesus God has torn open the heavens.  One of us, Jesus, now dwells as High Priest in the Holy of Holies.  Through Him we now have free access to God.

Advent is a special time for us to reflect on our need for God to come to save us from the power of sin.  This holy season brings with it the special graces for us to enter into the wonder of Christmas -the wonder of the Son of God becoming a human baby, while remaining truly God. At that moment the Son of God became forever a member of the human race, forever committed to us.  Nothing can destroy God’s love for us.

Especially during Advent we should long for God to tear open the heavens and come down -to save us, personally -to remove the veil of sin, preventing us from approaching God.  Now, more than ever, we should want God to come alive in each one of us and transform us, so that we can embrace the salvation Jesus has already won for us.

Jesus has promised to return in glory at the end of time.  That should fill us with hope of eternal happiness with Him, rather than fill us with fear. During Advent we will sing, “Oh, come, oh come, Emmanuel.” That expresses our need for Jesus, our longings for Him to enter ever more deeply into our lives, and we into His.

Isidore O.P.

ONLY A FILM

I'd enjoyed reading the book -a brilliant, imaginative and convincing fantasy. Seeing it on a small screen was a revelation to me of the creative skills of the experts in computer technology. It was also a big let-down. How could I be impressed by imagery, no matter how exciting or romantic, when men and women appear no larger than toy soldiers and elephants are as small as my pet gerbil?!?

Everything changed when I was taken to see the same drama on a large cinema screen. Loud speakers were distributed throughout the auditorium so that all of us seemed to be encased in a capsule of sound.

There was I with my brothers engrossed in watching the film, "Jurassic Park." We had just been given an episode that was as serene as the Garden of Eden (NB -before the Fall !).It was so relaxing and reassuring to be drawn into a world that seemed to be totally at peace with itself. Small wonder I had drifted off into a cosy, dreamy doze.

And then ...an enormous, fearsome dinosaur filled the whole screen, silent, poised, menacing. Unexpectedly, a huge roar reverberated throughout the cinema. The thrusting monster leaped forward...at me, seated in one of the front rows, nearest the screen. Without a thought I rose from my seat and in terror yelled, "Oh, God!" at the top of my voice. Never before and never since have I felt such an urgent need for God to come to my rescue.

Of course, the spell of this day-time nightmare was immediately broken when everyone in the cinema began to laugh at impressionable me. For my part, I was shaken, emotionally exhausted. It had been so real. But then there were my brothers to bring me round to laugh at myself.

Only much later was I able to reflect on what had for me been a shattering experience. I was much sobered by the thought that I, and I suppose all other fellow human beings, do not have control of our emotional reactions. We cannot turn them off and on as easily as we can the images on our TV screens. Images can be so over-powering that at the time we are unable to distinguish between the fictional and the factual. We simply enter and identify with what is being presented to us.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have wept when viewing DVDs of 'Les Miserables' and 'La Boheme.'  Who has been left cold and unmoved when watching on-screen drama which is violent or sensual? Let no-one tell us it's only a film and these actions are being acted out! And that they're not reality!

True enough! Up to a point! Beyond that point we are liable to be influenced in our thinking, our attitudes and possibly our behaviour by what passes for Reality Shows and Virtual Reality. They can be for us an occasion of sin in which, without thinking or consenting, we identify with screened hatred, jealousy, spite and vengeance or with lustful cravings. There will be those who will be inclined to act out in real life what they've seen acted in the world of fiction, without realizing that the seeds of these dispositions were sown during a time of recreation.

At the very least God has taught me to reflect on my outburst in the cinema and to question seriously the effect the Mass Media of Communication has on the innocence of my imagination, my desires and fears, and ultimately on my conduct.  I ask myself what influence on me did that rampant, roaring, lunging dinosaur have on me. It was merely fictional; I was/am very much an impressionable human being.                                                                      

In truth, 'Only a Film?  Eh!       But what a film!

Peter O.P.

THROUGH THE EYES OF MARY

I was born and raised in England. For over forty years the Caribbean island of Grenada has been the context, the environment, of my priesthood.  In this beautiful setting I have been fulfilled and challenged. Here I have felt ‘at home’ and yet ‘home-sick.’ Lofty mountains, golden beaches, grim fortresses and interesting buildings have been my friends.                                                    My somewhat stiff English body has learned to sway to the beat of the drum and the steel pan. My ears have become attuned to the rhythm of Calypso and Reggae. I have known the tense,  bewildered  excitement  of the rise and fall of a Revolution and the fear-filled insecurity of a hurricane blasting, grinding, my home, my church, into rubble. 

When members of my family and their friends have come to visit me it has been my joy and my pride to ‘show them around.’ I’ve introduced them to ‘MY’ Grenada.    What they’ve perceived through the lens of my experience has had a texture that has fitted well around the detailed information, the spectacular photos that can be found at any Travel Agency or on any computer.

They’ve seen the face of this tropical island through my eyes. Through my soul, my heat-beat they’ve felt something of its throb, its heart-beat.  

It could be that I’m claiming too much for myself. After all, in spite of my many years in this part of the world I will always be a ‘stranger in paradise.’ I shall never, ever, have that understanding that belongs to those whose grounding, culture, mind-set, and inborn attachment and loyalty are rooted in the local soil. 

It was in 2002 that Pope John Paul 11 gave to world the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. In so doing he shared with us these inspiring sentiments, "With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer… To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.”

Mary was there! She saw it all, she felt it all, she lived it all with her Son, Jesus, and now she shares it all with us as we meditate upon everything associated with the Word of God becoming flesh-of Mary’s flesh, and dwelling amongst us – as a child shares his life, his very self with his mother.

At the moment of writing, through my very being courses the question of the Lenten hymn, “Where you there when they…?” Then follows the response, “Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” Yes! Mary was there with Jesus through it all. Sometimes she must have trembled with excitement and joy; at others she was there trembling with fear, sorrow, and horror.                                                                                             Luke in his Gospel wrote that after the shepherds departed from the stable outside Bethlehem ‘As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart,(2.19).  I detect here an intensity of feeling that she dearly wants to share with us.

Through the lens of her own experience she leads us into the Mystery that was the life, death and glorification of her Son, Jesus-for our sake and for our salvation.

I dare to suggest to you that I have journeyed with the people of Grenada for many of the significant years of its history. The pulse of my emotions has throbbed with something of the same pounding as has their own. I dare to suggest that because ‘I was there.’ I have been able to share with others something of what all this has meant to me.

The vocation, the mission, of Mary who was ‘There’ throughout the whole of the ‘Jesus Story’ is now to share with us all that it meant to her personally.  This is far more than an emotional autobiography. For Mary, for you and for me this is to a spiritual journey of discovery in which we discover Jesus and in so doing discover  ourselves.                                                                              This is what reciting the Rosary, by the grace of God, can do for us.

Peter Clarke, OP